


Alpha

by Thea_Bromine



Category: Buffy the Vampire Slayer
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-01-31
Updated: 2014-01-31
Packaged: 2018-01-10 16:44:43
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 14,035
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1162097
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Thea_Bromine/pseuds/Thea_Bromine
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Xander doesn’t seem to be himself, so somebody has to look after him. Who gets volunteered? Hello, Giles.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Weirdness Happened

He did wonder if he ought to have gone with them, but they had been so insistent that they could manage on their own and after all, Buffy was the Slayer and he was the Watcher; it was most decidedly not his job to slay. Most Watchers never went on patrol with their Slayers. He had spent the evening with his books and no doubt they had been glad not to have him along, droning on about how they should prepare for the fight, and trying to get them to be a little more organised and a little less inclined just to wing it. In the privacy of his own living room, he might admit that they were rather good at winging it, although never would he say such a thing where they could hear him. And on the occasions on which winging it didn’t turn out to be the best option, wasn’t it as well that Buffy’s Watcher knew something about research?

He was not feeling offended that they didn’t want him. He was not.

“Um, Giles? Gotta problem, sorta.”

He sighed. He loved Buffy dearly, but it would have been nice to have had a Slayer who spoke English as her first language. Or, indeed, at all.

“Yes, Buffy? Good evening, Willow. Oh! And who’s your friend? We’ve not met.” He came towards the door to meet them: Buffy, Willow and a young dog, attached to what appeared to be somebody’s belt around its neck, and Willow’s scarf attached to the belt. It was an unremarkable mongrel, three-quarters or so grown, medium sized, short haired, mostly black on top, with a tan chest and belly and black legs culminating in feet which appeared to be slightly too large to be managed comfortably. One ear pricked up and the other flopped ridiculously, and a narrow tail beat nervously from side to side.

“Well, where did you come from?” enquired Giles affably, offering the back of his hand to be sniffed. He liked dogs and in general dogs liked him; this one seemed to be no exception, squirming to and fro and nosing at his fingers.

“Yeah, well, that’s the problem, see?”

“You’ve, you’ve found a puppy? Buffy, you can’t keep a puppy at college.”

“No, already worked that out, Giles.”

“Of course I don’t know how your mother would feel about, about a dog, but you can hardly just spring one on her. And he’s in rather good condition, he doesn’t look like a serious stray – well, except for having lost his collar. I, I don’t know where you would take a stray here? Is there a, a rescue centre somewhere about? He’s probably somebody’s pet, they’ll be looking for him. Yes, you’re lovely, aren’t you? You don’t need to chew my fingers, thank you. You’re not very old and you don’t look terribly bright. Are you lost?”

“Um, Giles? Don’t tell him he isn’t bright, you’ll hurt his feelings. And he’s not lost, not exactly. That’s sorta the problem. We... there was... we hit a patch of, of something weird. Weirdness happened.”

“Weirdness.” He was serious now. “What sort of weirdness?” He was turning back to his desk, ready to gather books and reference materials. Willow took up the tale.

“We were patrolling and we went through the park, and there was a big patch of sorta glittery light, and it smelled of pineapple and it moved? When we got close it was like it recognised us and it followed us? We ran, but it was always there, it kept getting in front of us, and eventually... weirdness happened.”

“An Aspall field, yes; we knew it was coming.”

They stared at him; he stared back. “The Aspall field, Buffy? I told you last week that one was due?”

Total blankness. He began to be uneasy. “I told you,” he elaborated in his best librarian’s manner, “that the overlap with the Aspall universe would occur between about noon on Tuesday and the early hours of next Monday morning. That the Aspall field would in all likelihood feel the pull of the Hellmouth and come into existence here.”

“Oh,” said Buffy, in a small voice. “Um, yeah, I remember, you said something about it.”

His unease was increasing. “Said something... Buffy, I spent twenty minutes telling you what the likely effects of the overlap would be; I gave you my copy of Burlington’s The Imbricated Totality; I told you that you needed to read chapter five.”

“Been busy?”

His spectacles were in one hand; with the other hand he pinched the bridge of his nose. “You weren’t listening, were you? And you didn’t read Burlington. So you didn’t recognise the Aspall field.” It would not, he told himself severely, serve any useful purpose to raise his voice. It wouldn’t help to shout at Buffy, or to be sarcastic. It might make him feel better in the short term, but it would only alienate his Slayer.

“Um, Giles?”

“Yes, Willow?”

“Wasn’t here last week. What’s an Aspall field?”

He started to clean his spectacles; he knew that they knew that it was a displacement activity, but he hoped that they didn’t know what it was a displacement for – that he did it most often when he felt an all but overwhelming urge to clip one of them heavily around the ear. Deep breaths, Giles.

“Very simply, when the Aspall universe overlaps with ours, it leaks raw... well, raw magic, I suppose. It, it happens once a decade or so, it’s fairly easy to predict, and once every century or thereabouts the leakage happens somewhere... unhelpful. Usually it’s at sea or over one of the Poles or whatever and all we get is peculiar weather patterns. This time it’s due at the Hellmouth and the, the interference is likely to cause something more extreme. It’s not precisely dangerous, as long as it doesn’t affect anything which is magical in its own right, but it’s a bloody nuisance. I did warn Buffy” – he was unable to hold that one back, and it sounded rather acid – “that an Aspall field would hit Sunnydale some time over the next few days and that she should stay clear of it. So, so should you, Willow. The, the scent of pineapple is typical, as is the glow. But as long as it didn’t touch either of you – it didn’t, did it?”

They looked at each other and something passed between them. “No,” said Willow hesitantly, “but...”

“Well, if you see it again, stay away. It will be drawn to you, so if you’re too close it will, will lock onto your magical signature, and follow you.”

“Right,” said Buffy, also hesitantly, “but... what other effects does it have? And like, are they permanent?”

“All this is in Burlington, Buffy; that’s why I gave it to you. I, I know you don’t care to listen when I tell you things; I thought you might prefer doing your own research since you’re bored by mine.” Shut up, Giles. Not helping. But good Lord, what might have happened if a Slayer had fallen within an Aspall field? He had to find some way of telling whether she had her brain turned on when he spoke to her; she was disturbingly able to give appropriate answers without anything he said taking root in her head.

“Yeah but... just give me the cheat sheet summary? Just the effects?”

He counted slowly to ten in Sumerian. “A magical living entity which enters an Aspall field will hit a binary condition between our universe and the Aspall universe. It will, will, flicker, if you like, between the two until the field moves far enough away from our universe for... well, it’s like grounding something electrical. And then anything can happen. It, it might end up here, or there, or be torn apart between the two. That was why I mentioned it to you. You can’t live in the Aspall universe, and you can’t live if you’re ripped in half by the shift. Slayer healing won’t cover your body being here and your head being there.” He knew he was being unkind, but he was quite willing to be cruel if it frightened Buffy enough that she might pay attention to some of the things he told her in future. It seemed, though, that it was Willow who was frightened; she had made a small whimpering noise, and slid down to wrap her arms around the neck of the puppy at her feet, which was engaged in licking her face.

“Don’t let it do that, Willow, it, it’s unhygienic. You don’t know where it’s been.”

“Do, actually,” said Buffy in a rather unhappy tone. “Out with us. And there was a Labrador on the way back... ‘Kay, Giles, now tell me about a non-magical something in this field.”

He shrugged. “It doesn’t generally do any lasting harm.” Both girls sighed. “Temporary transfiguration, usually, until the field passes. If it’s an animal, it doesn’t matter although a domesticated animal can end up more than a little confused. There’s a story in Burlington about a horse being transfigured into some sort of wild cat; apparently it returned to horse shape after a few days but its temper was irrevocably spoiled.” The girls were exchanging unhappy glances; it appeared to be Giles’ turn to sigh. “All right. What got caught in the field?”

They looked at the puppy, which appeared to be embarrassed by the attention; it looked up at Giles, and flattened its ears to its head, turning completely round twice and then sitting and solemnly offering him a paw.

“Does... does having had bad mojo-type stuff happen to a non-magical person... make them into a magical person who might get ripped in half?” asked Willow in a very small and apprehensive voice. Giles shook his head.

“No.”

“Oh. Good.”

It took him a moment to catch up, to look down into anxious brown eyes and to work out what was missing from the evening’s entertainment.

“Xander?”


	2. He Might Have Bloody Known

He might have known. He might have bloody known. Combine Buffy’s inability to listen to a bloody word he said with Xander's abso-bloody-lutely unfailing attraction to trouble, and an Aspall field, and... why had he ever thought they could go out on their own? It actually hurt, the effort of not saying as much. He trusted that at whatever judgment he had to undergo when he died, the fact that he had held his tongue would be accounted a virtue in him and used to offset at least some of his many failings.

Well.

“What are you going to do about it?” He might allow himself that much by way of reminding Buffy that actually, at least part of this was her fault; he allowed her to see that he thought so, before he gave way. “Look, we’d better see if anything can be done about it. You need to go home and fetch Burlington; Willow can drive you and I’ll start with the books here. Um, do we know if Xander's in there? I mean, is it just a puppy with a puppy brain, or is there any awareness?” And he didn’t say not that it would make a lot of difference, and that was another virtue on his scorecard.

“Sorta both,” offered Willow. “When it happened, once we’d worked out what it was, we said we needed you, we needed to come here, and he set off straight away in the right direction, so that’s Xander, yeah? Only,” and she blushed hotly, “there were lamp-posts, and there was this Labrador and there was, was sniffing and they, like all tied up on the lamp-post and, and, and...”

Giles looked down. The puppy looked back at him. It seemed embarrassed, although that might have been simple anthropomorphism. He bit his lip, trying not to laugh. “Well, yes, a puppy will do that sort of thing.”

“Yeah, but Xander doesn’t,” objected Buffy. “I mean, even when he was all hyena... Giles, is he going to turn into some sort of dog every time weirdness happens?”

“I, I believe the hyena is feliform, rather than caniform.”

They all looked at him blankly, even the puppy. Buffy shook her head. “Yeah, well, even when he was eating mascots and stuff, he didn’t pee on lamp-posts.”

That was a conversation stopper; the puppy whimpered and retreated behind the couch. Giles sympathised: Buffy’s conversation regularly had the same effect on him. “Burlington, Buffy. Now. I have no idea whether or not anything can be done about this, and, and I imagine that Xander would rather like to know.”

“Right,” said Buffy rather uneasily. “Um, can Xander stay here with you? I mean...”

“If the alternative is dog hair all over my car, then yes, he not only can, he may.”

They all, including the puppy, glared at him; he was unrepentant. A man had some standards, after all.

He found himself a little at a loss when the girls left: he knew that he wasn’t alone, but somehow he expected Xander's constant babble and was disconcerted not to hear it. Making tea seemed an obvious thing to do, and he leaned on the worktop, waiting for the kettle to boil, and considered his silent companion, who stood rather awkwardly in the doorway, and then approached tentatively and nosed at his leg.

“This is really very inconvenient,” Giles told him sternly. The puppy flattened its ears. “On the other hand, it’s a change to have you here and not see you going through all my kitchen cupboards looking for something to eat.”

Both ears were tipped forward, although only one would prick upright. The kettle clicked itself off and Giles occupied his hands with teapot and caddy. When he opened the fridge for milk, a black head insinuated itself under his elbow.

“Did you want something?”

The tail waved uncertainly.

“I’m not giving you soda. I, I have no idea what it would do to a dog’s digestion and I’m not anxious to find out.”

The tail and ears both sagged. Giles turned back to his teapot. He could feel Xander's eyes on him.

“I suppose you might be thirsty.” He found an old take-away container, and filled it with water, placing it on the floor in a corner. The puppy gazed at him mournfully. “Oh, all right. It’s beef casserole, take it or leave it. It was supposed to be my dinner tomorrow.” The tail thumped on the floor. “I’m not heating it up for you; you can eat it cold. If you get it all over the floor I shall beat you.” Xander squirmed, leaning on his legs as he scooped beef and gravy into another plastic container, and plainly not believing the threat.

“I can’t believe I’m doing this.” He drank half his tea in the time it took the puppy to inhale a large portion of Giles’ dinner and chase the empty bowl around the kitchen floor, and then retrieved the container and dropped it in the sink, moving back to the comfort of his armchair and the books. The puppy followed him, and...

“Get down!”

It scrambled off the couch, looking surprised.

“No dogs on the furniture,” admonished Giles, severely. The puppy continued to look surprised. “As long as you’re in that shape, you can damn well sit on the floor. No dogs on the furniture. And no chewing anything, either.”

Xander offered a paw again, and when Giles failed to take it, offered the other.

“It’s not that clever a trick, you know. Lie down and behave. I, I’m going to see if I can find the way to get you back to your own body.”

The puppy sighed noisily. Giles ignored it, and picked out two promising books.

They were a lot less promising once he had looked through them. There might be more in Burlington, but both the Watcher’s Diary in which he had first read about Aspall fields and the book which Buffy called The Encyclopedia of Weird Stuff suggested that there was nothing which could be done.

“We may just have to sit it out,” he said doubtfully to the puppy, which raised its head as he spoke. “I wonder if there’s anything in Johanssen? Or Bengt? Aspall fields seem to hit Scandinavia with disproportionate frequency. God, I haven’t looked in Bengt in years; I’m not even certain where it is.”

It was, he discovered, in a box at the very back of the spare room, under two other boxes, and retrieving it would have been both quicker and easier without the puppy’s help. It followed him around, getting in the way, and eventually sitting directly behind him resulting in him treading on it as he turned. Then it yelped and sprang up, contriving only to insinuate itself between his legs and trip him, so that he dropped the book, recovered his balance with a lunge and twist, and cracked his funny bone on the doorframe. He folded down to his knees, cradling the injured elbow and swearing softly but with feeling; the puppy attempted to climb into his lap, whimpering and nosing at his face. He pushed it away, not unkindly.

“Yes, you always are bloody sorry, afterwards. God, that hurt. Get off. Xander, you’ve never shown any sign of wanting to sit on my knee and kiss me before, which I’m sure is a source of comfort and satisfaction to both of us. There’s no reason for you to start now.”

The puppy whimpered again, and raised a paw hopefully; this time he accepted it.  “Yes, all right, you didn’t do it on purpose. Go on, get out of the way; let me up.”

“Giles?” It was Willow’s voice; the puppy scampered towards her, twisting and wriggling in obvious delight. “What are you doing on the floor?”

“Getting up, I hope. As usual, Xander got in the way resulting in bruises and loss of dignity for me. Once upon a time, I, I was a highly esteemed museum researcher, you know. People spoke to me – and about me – with respect. Once upon a time, I had people to fetch my books for me, I didn’t have to fall over teenagers or badly behaved dogs to do it myself.”

The puppy whined. Buffy grinned at him. “But this is way more fun.”

“For you, maybe. What does Burlington say?”

She screwed up her face; he sighed. “Nothing good, then?”

“Says he’s just got to wait. Says if he’s not a magical creature it shouldn’t do him any harm.”

“Wonderful.”

“Giles?”

“Yes, Willow?”

“Where’s the rest of Xander?”

“I, I beg your pardon?”

“Well... I’ve got his clothes; I picked them up when it happened. But he’s much smaller now than he was before and... where’s the rest?”

He looked at her blankly. “I have no idea.”

“Oh. It doesn’t say in Burlington.”

“It doesn’t say in Bengt either. It just says that an entity which is changed into another shape will change back when the field moves on.”

“That would be an interesting research project, though, Giles. Where does the...” She trailed off at the sight of his expression. “Um, so we’re just waiting for Xander to be all Xander-shaped again?”

He nodded, incapable of other speech. Buffy and Willow exchanged glances.

“Well,” chirped Buffy brightly, “um, we’ll be off. We’ll call in tomorrow, probably not until the evening, got some classes to go to, papers to write, you know the score...”

“No!” Giles yelped, experienced in Buffy’s techniques of distraction. “You’re not leaving Xander here!”

Three sets of puppy-dog eyes were turned on him; he noticed that Willow’s were more puppy-doggish than the puppy’s.

“Giles, we can’t take him,” explained Buffy, slowly and reasonably. “College rooms, classes, places to be. And he can’t go home, not in that shape. I know his parents don’t notice much, but they’d notice that. He couldn’t even manage door handles. He’ll have to stay here with you.”

“He’s only small,” put in Willow, hopefully.

“He’s Xander,” Giles pointed out, unarguably.

“Exactly,” agreed Buffy brightly. “So it’s O.K. for him to stay with you. We’re not allowed boys overnight in the dorm rooms. He’s slept on your couch before.”

“He’s not sleeping on it now; he’ll have to sleep on the floor.” The battle was already lost; he put up as much as he could by way of rearguard action.

“We – when we saw what it said in Burlington, we thought it might last a day or two,” offered Willow, rather nervously. “So we, um, we got you some stuff on the way back. Dog food. Kibble.”

“Kibble?” He knew it was a distraction, but he couldn’t stop himself chasing it. New words did that to him, always had.

She held out a bag; it was the one into which he had seen her hastily cramming Xander's clothes, but she rummaged and produced a packet. He took it from her.

“Oh, dog biscuit.”

“Don’t you call it kibble?”

“A kibble is a sort of bucket on a chain. Mining.”

“Oh. Kibble’s dog food. And a couple cans, and some...” He didn’t catch what else she said, and Buffy seemed anxious to get away, ushering Willow out with a wave and a hasty word of farewell and looking... looking embarrassed? He turned back from the door, and picked up the abandoned bag.

“I hope you like canned food, Xander. She’s got you... two chicken and liver and two beef and kidney. And the crunchy things that look like gravel. And what’s this?” His fingers had met another packet; he pulled it free, and looked at it, and for a moment his mind skipped between conflicting emotions of embarrassment – yes, that was what had thrown Buffy, and presumably the practical good sense was Willow’s – and dismay before he simply gave way to amusement. He didn’t know whether to hope that Xander wouldn’t remember any of this later, or that he would. Either way, Giles thought, the boy was going to owe him, owe him big time.

The puppy cocked its head enquiringly at his laughter. Giles pushed the packet back, and smiled at it. “I’m sure you’ll work it out. Right. Well. The consensus appears to be that for the moment at least, you’re a dog, and specifically, you’re my dog. God alone knows how much you understand but we’ll try: no climbing on the furniture, no chewing things, no noise. I’m not supposed to keep a pet in this flat. If we’re asked, we’ll say that I’m watching you over the weekend for a friend, and hope to get away with it. If we meet anybody you know, your name’s Jasper, because Xander would be too conspicuous. I had a dog called Jasper when I was a child.” He hesitated. “I, I’m afraid I think Burlington’s right: I don’t recall seeing anything, anywhere, that might help us, but I can think of another couple of places we could look. Well, I could look. But I need more tea first.”

The puppy followed him, tail swinging slowly, and watched hopefully as he rinsed out the teapot and refilled the kettle. When he looked at it, it let its tongue hang out and then licked its chops loudly.

“Oh no. No. Not a bloody hope. I’m prepared to bet that you ate before you went out tonight, and then you ate enough beef to fill Xander the boy, never mind Jasper the dog. I’m not feeding you any more tonight.”

The puppy sighed mournfully; Giles poured tea and went back to his books, already accustoming himself to the pad-pad behind him. He sat in the armchair and the puppy flopped down beside him.

Over the next half hour, he became aware of the tiny shifts which brought the dog closer and closer. It never looked at him, but every movement was towards him, until a warm shoulder was resting against his ankle. He leaned over.

“Feeling insecure?” he enquired gently. It would hardly be surprising. If Xander were still conscious inside the black and tan body, he must be scared and unhappy. It came quite naturally to run a hand over the domed head and to pull gently at the silky ears. When he ran his fingers down over the dog’s ribs, he realised that it was trembling. “It’s not that bad, surely? It will wear off. It’ll only be two or three days, and I dare say we can manage that.” He wasn’t sure what impulse drove him to rise, pull the cushion from his chair, and drop it on the floor, but when he sat down on it, legs extended, back against the base of the chair, and lifted an elbow, the puppy wriggled underneath his raised arm and laid its chin on his thigh. Xander, he thought in amusement, would never have done such a thing; he hugged the girls often but he had never shown any signs of wanting to touch Giles. This was pure puppy.

He read for another hour, his hand on the puppy’s neck, fingers working slowly through the thick ruff and occasionally running down the long back. Then he closed the last book.

“I’m sorry, Xander. There’s nothing here that’s any use to us at all. I’m afraid you really will just have to wait for it to wear off.” He worked himself up to his knees; he was too old to sit on the floor. “I’m going to bed. I, I suppose...” He looked around the room. “Well, the first thing...”

He opened the door. “Go on, out.”

Anthropomorphism or not, he couldn’t mistake the shock in the puppy’s eyes. He hastened to clarify. “I suggest the drain to the left, or Mrs Wellington’s hydrangea. That, that’s the big bushy plant over there, if you didn’t know. I hate the damn thing, it’s ugly as sin. Go on, I’m not getting up at three in the morning to let you out just, just because you don’t feel like it now.”

The puppy trotted out, and nosed at the plant; then it cast an uneasy glance back at Giles. “Go on,” he encouraged.

It continued to look at him.

“What, you’re gone all inhibited?”

The puppy whined.

“Oh good Lord, Xander, don’t tell me you can’t go when somebody’s watching – I know what the school cloakrooms were like. And from what Buffy and Willow said earlier...”

It whined again; he sighed. “All right, all right, I’ll go back inside.”

He left the door open; the puppy, very sheepish in expression, came back in a minute later, just as he laid the chair from his desk along the couch.

“I’m not sure how much of you is puppy and how much is Xander so I’m not counting on you remembering what I said. That’s to keep you off the sofa.” He was adding the waste paper basket to the armchair. The puppy scampered to the foot of the stairs and Giles yelped. “No! You’re not sleeping with me, and while that actually is what I meant to say, I think we should both hope later that you don’t remember I worded it quite that way. You are sleeping down here.” He opened the cupboard under the stairs. One thing about demon-hunting was that it was hard on clothing and involved a lot of slime; Giles was regularly grateful, as the third teenager passed through his bathroom, that his water bills weren’t based on a meter. It did, though, mean that he had a considerable supply of old towels in various stages of disrepair; he pulled out two of the larger ones, and used them to line a large box which had contained books from the school library and which he laid on its side.

“There. Bed, Xander.”

The puppy pinned its ears down, but it came and climbed into the box, turning round several times and pushing the towels into what was obviously a more comfortable conformation. Giles shut the door; Xander was never good about closing the door behind him, although at least in this shape he had something of an excuse.

He had been in bed for about ten minutes when he heard the puppy moving about; he got up quietly and went to look over the railing. He had left the desk lamp on, although he wasn’t sure what had prompted it; in the dim light, the puppy was pulling something across the floor. He was opening his mouth to speak when he recognised it: it was an aged rugby shirt which he occasionally used as a lightweight sweater and which he had left on the back of the couch. To his amusement, it was being pulled into the makeshift bed, and presently the puppy lay down with its chin on the rumpled fabric, presumably in need of something with a familiar smell to see off the night-time feeling of abandonment.

He smiled and went back to bed; the shirt would wash, after all, and he didn’t begrudge Xander – in whatever shape – a little comfort in a frightening situation.


	3. Things We're Never Ever Going To Mention

He was woken at five to far too bloody early by a cold nose in his ear. He had never cared particularly for having his ears licked – wrists, now, wrists were different – and having his ears licked by Xander in canine form was not his chosen way to start the day. He cursed and pulled away, trying to hide among the bedclothes, but the puppy was crying softly. He sat up, and it scampered back to the head of the stairs, whimpering and looking over its shoulder at him.

“What?”

It half ran, half fell down the stairs; he sat up, rubbing his ear, and reached for his glasses and his wristwatch. There was another yelp from downstairs, followed by...

“Don’t you dare scratch that door! I have to pay for dilapidations!”

He looked over the railing; the puppy looked back and whined loudly.

“Dear Lord. All right, wait a minute.”

This sounded like desperation; he didn’t wait to find his dressing gown. It was early enough that none of his neighbours would be about: he could risk going to the door in nothing more than pyjama trousers.

“There. Go.”

The puppy shot across the courtyard towards the hydrangea; he made a mental note to tell it not to do that when people were around. Mrs Wellington was keen on the revolting thing. He leaned on the door frame and yawned.

The puppy came back.

Slowly and with a look of some dismay.

“All right? Coming in again?” And he would have to be careful about that. He could not afford to fall into a habit of inviting things inside.

The puppy came as far as the door mat, whimpering, and fidgeting.

He laughed.

“Give me two minutes to put some clothes on.”

He was as quick as he possibly could be, pulling on a shirt and running shorts, tying his shoelaces and then scrabbling at the back of his wardrobe, before hurrying down the stairs.

“Come here and let me put this on you.”

It was a worn leather collar, an inch or so wide. The puppy looked at him with undisguised horror.

“I suggest that you never, ever ask.”

The puppy was moving slowly backwards; he grabbed it by the scruff of the neck before it could bolt and manhandled it between his legs.

“I don’t know what the regulations are for dogs in public places in California so I recommend that you behave very carefully and try not to attract attention. I, I have no idea what it would do to you if I had to have you microchipped. You will wear the collar and you’ll walk on the lead and you will not chase cats or make a nuisance of yourself. And now we’ll go to the park. Can, can you, um, contain yourself until then?”

The puppy pulled towards the door. Giles grabbed at the small packet which Willow had left with the dog food, checked that he had his keys, and allowed himself to be dragged outside. Normally he would have carried out a careful stretching routine before he began even to jog; this morning he went at a brisk trot along the shortest route to the Memorial Park, in which he could remember seeing a dog-owners’ area. He came to a halt at the gate, and slipped the leash.

“There, go on. I’ll wait.”

The puppy looked at him, still, apparently, horrified.

“Look, I’m sorry, but I’m fairly certain that we’ll both be in trouble if I don’t, don’t clear up afterwards. And you know you want to.”

The puppy continued to look horrified. He sighed.

“Will it help if I say that we will never mention this, ever, to anybody? And, um, I’ve had dogs before, so it’s not an entirely new experience for me? See that tree? The big one? Go round the other side of it, and I’ll turn my back.”

The puppy trotted off, not without a couple of uneasy glances; he had promised to turn his back, so he did, despite feeling rather stupid at negotiating with a dog. When Xander came back, the hair on the back of his neck was lifted, as if in indignation; Giles decided against comment, and simply retreated to the tree, doing what needed to be done, and dropping the black plastic bag into the nearby bin. Then he looked down.

“Since we’re here, I’m going to have my run. Don’t get too far away.” He took a minute or two for the missed stretches and then set off along the path at a steady pace. The puppy followed, bouncing on ahead and pushing its nose under bushes, and then falling behind and galloping to catch up. It was oddly companionable and after a while Giles found that he was choosing those paths which looked the most interesting, rather than his normal habit of selecting the ones with the best surfaces for a runner. The puppy followed enthusiastically, romping through the undergrowth, one ear turned ridiculously inside out.

It was under a pile of dead leaves, spurned into the air by rushing paws, that Giles spotted the tennis ball.

“Xan... Jasper? Here!”

He had been a competent cricketer in his youth, rather than a skilled one, but he had been able to send a ball all the way to the wicket keeper from the boundary, and the ability had not, it seemed, deserted him. The ball bounced twice before the puppy caught up with it, flinging itself joyously up to snatch it out of the air and rush back to him. Then they fought over it, with a mixture of laughter and mock growls, until Giles recovered it and threw it again. The third time, he deliberately hurled it against a tree so that it bounced unpredictably and the puppy turned a somersault changing direction; then he ran, deliberately, the other way, waiting to be caught. He had tried, more than once, to persuade Xander to run with him, to make the patrols and fights easier by improving his fitness, but Xander was apparently allergic to exercise; it amused him now to see the canine Xander so keen to run and chase and play, and he wondered a little guiltily if he could have enticed the boy to physical activity by offering it as a game rather than as a necessary form of work.

Xander would have kept it up much longer than Giles could manage; he was fit for his age, but he was neither a puppy nor a teenager. Eventually, he had to concede defeat and turn for home. Rather to his surprise, the puppy, when called and shown the lead, came obediently, and pushed its nose against him affectionately. He wondered a little wistfully which of the Xanders that was: if the puppy was simply happy and willing to show it, or if the human Xander had enjoyed itself, and had suddenly realised that Giles could be hugged too.

He didn’t allow himself to follow that line of thought.

At home, he tipped a can of dog food into an empty ice-cream carton, added dog biscuit – what had Willow called it? Oh yes, kibble - and changed the water in the other tub.

“Breakfast.”

The puppy looked at it doubtfully, nosed it once, and then fell into it enthusiastically; Giles took the opportunity to make toast and coffee. Rather to his dismay – because he disapproved of giving dogs titbits – he was somehow persuaded to share the third piece of toast, before the puppy returned to chase the empty carton across the kitchen floor.

“Amuse yourself. I need a shower.”

He thought afterwards that the suggestion had perhaps been a mistake. He came out of the bathroom, fastening his cuffs, and looked for the source of an odd and unexpected sound, to find himself meeting the gaze of a startled, and unless he was very much mistaken, embarrassed puppy. Xander could lick his own bollocks? Who knew?

“I, I think we’ll put that down as another of the things that we are never, ever going to mention to anybody else.” He couldn’t resist adding, “Although if you can do that in your other shape, I have to say that I’m very impressed.”

The puppy turned its back pointedly; Giles grinned and went upstairs. It really was a shame that it would be unethical to hold against Xander anything he did as a dog. He was being provided with so much ammunition...

He spent most of the day cross-referencing; the puppy was no help at all. When Giles dropped a box of file cards, the puppy joined enthusiastically in the clear up, chasing three or four cards underneath various pieces of furniture, sitting on others, killing one stone dead and burying the pieces under the rug. Every time Giles rose from his desk, the puppy got up too, and followed him from room to room. When he wanted to read, it insisted on lying with its chin on his instep, until his foot went to sleep. By the middle of the afternoon, it was bored; it began to sigh loudly, and set up a barely audible keening complaint, until Giles could stand it no longer, and fetched the lead for another venture outside. This time they walked briskly along Sunnydale’s streets; the puppy quivered once or twice at particularly insolent cats, and there was a rather scary bulldog, and something which looked to Giles like an aggressive floorcloth, but which he identified after a little thought as a Yorkshire terrier. It seemed to know that Xander wasn’t what he was claiming to be; it growled and yapped at him from behind a gate while he pretended not to notice.

They were home well before the light began to fail, and Giles was permitted another hour with his reference cards before the puppy sat up alertly, head cocked to one side, ears pricked. A moment later, Giles could hear Buffy’s voice, and the puppy scampered to the door, giving ridiculous little woofs and whimpers of delight.

“Hey, Giles? We brought pizza. Oz is just parking the van. Hey, Xander. How’s being a dog?”

Giles followed her into the kitchen; Buffy opened the pizza box and made a face. “I think we need to reheat this.”

He slid the pizzas onto baking trays and passed the empty boxes back to her. The bin rattled as she rammed them inside and Xander pushed his head after them, sniffing noisily.

“No,” admonished Giles, pushing him away gently with his foot; the puppy wriggled at him and he turned to set the oven.

“Hey, Giles.” That was Willow, arms full of soda cans which she set on the worktop. “Hey, Xander. What are you doing?”

“He’s getting his head out of the bin,” said Giles firmly, pushing the puppy away a second time and tapping him lightly on the nose. “I said no, Xander.” He turned back to the cooker, and slid the baking trays inside; as he straightened he heard the bin lid rattle again and Willow watched open-mouthed as he took two swift steps across the kitchen and landed a smart slap on the puppy’s quivering rump. The yelp and his firm “No!” were simultaneous, and the puppy skittered away to hide behind Buffy’s legs and then fled into the sitting room; both Buffy and Willow stared at Giles accusingly.

“Giles!” squeaked Willow. “You spanked Xander!”

“What about it?”

“You spanked Xander!”

“And I will again if he doesn’t keep out of that bin. There are cans in there, with sharp edges; I don’t want him cutting his muzzle. He’s not having pizza, either, it’s not good for dogs. You can give him half a can of dog food and some of the biscuit, if you want, but it might be better to hold off until we’re ready to eat ourselves. He’s as importunate in that shape as he is in his own.”

They heard the door again, and Oz announcing himself, and Giles leaned round to greet him, only to be interrupted by a singing snarl. The puppy was crouching in the middle of the floor, glaring at Oz, the hair on his neck lifted and every tooth showing.

“Xander? It’s only Oz.” That was Willow, putting a hand out to the puppy’s head; Oz took a step forward and the puppy broke, leaping backward with a shriek of mingled rage and terror and retreating under Giles’ desk. They all stared at each other, and Giles moved to the desk and knelt down to peer into the gap.

“Xander?”

There was a piteous whimper; Oz came down beside Giles, and the whimper turned to another snarl.

“Guess it’s the wolf,” said Oz, calmly. Giles nodded.

“I think, I think he must sense it on you, and the puppy nature is taking over. Xander? You can come out, it’s quite safe. Come along.”

The puppy cried. Oz shook his head. “Won’t work like that, Giles. You’ll need to put me down first.”

“I, I, I beg your pardon?”

Oz looked round at them all, and then back to Giles. “Well, you’re the alpha.”

Giles stared at him blankly; Oz shuffled his small supply of daily words and elaborated. “In our pack. The Scooby pack. You’re the alpha.”

Giles flashed a glance at Buffy, but Oz spotted it. “No, not her. She’s the fighter, but you’re the planner, you decide what prey we’re chasing, and how. You’re responsible for the safety of the pack; you look after the cubs. Your job to protect Xander.”

“Well, yes, all right, but, but you’re not threatening him.”

Oz shook his head. “He feels threatened.” He lowered his head and stared at the puppy, which snarled again, a higher pitched, panicked sound. “So if I do threaten him, you put me on the floor and make me submit, and he sees that I’m not a threat.”

“Oh,” said Giles weakly; Oz, taking that as concurrence, lowered his head again, and gave a rumbling growl.

The puppy shrieked in obvious terror and Giles was astonished by the force of the protective wave which swept over him. He grabbed at the back of Oz’s neck and pushed; Oz slumped obligingly to the floor, letting out a yelp of his own, and rolling onto his back, hands by his head and neck exposed. “Now lean over me. If I hurt the cub, you’ll rip my throat out.”

Giles showed his own teeth, feeling a complete idiot when Oz whimpered; there was a scuffle and the puppy shot out from under the desk, nipped Oz maliciously on the shoulder and scrambled into Giles’ lap, where it hid its head under his arm and quivered.

“See?” said Oz calmly, rolling over. “Alpha. May I get up now?”

“Um, should I let you?” The puppy had dared to extract its nose from Giles’ armpit and was watching.

“Let me half up and then growl.”

He did, feeling even more of an idiot than before. Oz ducked again, chest to the floor, and then got up slowly. “Should be enough.”

Giles looked up, still petting the puppy, rubbing its ears and stroking under its chin, to find both Buffy and Willow staring at him.

“What?”

“You’re cuddling Xander,” Willow pointed out.

“He’s scared,” said Giles defensively. “I’ve been known to hug you when you were scared. Why not him?”

“Right,” agreed Buffy weakly. “Pack alpha. Can we eat now?”

He nodded. “Can, can you fetch everything?”

Oz followed Buffy into the kitchen; Willow went on staring at Giles, who continued to fuss over the puppy for another moment, and who then set it down on the floor and pulled himself up to sit in the armchair. The others came back, handing out pizza and soda; they sat down together on the couch and the puppy squeaked.

“Now what?” asked Giles in an exasperated tone, but the puppy, half crouching and looking apprehensive, crept over to Oz, caught the ankle of his jeans between its teeth and began to pull, whining, and casting nervous glances back at Giles. For a moment they all looked blank – and then Giles laughed.

“Ah. Alpha rules. No dogs on the furniture, Oz.”

Oz looked at Giles, and once at the puppy, and then slid down onto the floor. “O.K.?”

Giles shrugged. “Sorry.” He pulled the cushion free, and settled on the floor himself; the girls followed suit.

“You a responsible dog owner, Giles?” mocked Buffy.

“My pet is healthy and well exercised and under proper control at all times,” he retorted, refusing to rise to her teasing.

“Yeah, but really, Giles,” Willow broke off to lick cheese from her fingers, “is it... how has it been? Is Xander O.K.?”

“I have no idea,” he admitted. “Physically? He’s eating, and we’ve been out to the Memorial Park so he’s had fresh air and exercise. Mentally? Emotionally? I haven’t a clue. Sometimes the way he behaves is Xander; sometimes it’s a dog. I don’t know whether to talk to him or pat him.”

“Yes,” said Oz, round a mouthful of pizza.

“Yes?”

“Talk to him. Remind him he’s not a dog. Pat him. Contact. Reassurance when the wolf... the dog is strong.”

“Oh.” Well, of all of them, Oz could be expected to know. “Buffy, I can see you, you know.”

“It’s only the crust,” argued Buffy defensively; the puppy swallowed and licked its lips. Giles glared at her.

“Oz, if I’m the alpha, is she not supposed to do what I say?”

Oz glanced from one of them to the other. “Taking the fifth here.”

“Wise,” said Buffy darkly; Giles opened his mouth, recollected just in time that the term ‘bitch’ was much more rude in American than in British English, and subsided again. They continued to eat for a few moments and then Buffy said thoughtfully, “Memorial Park? I killed a demon there last week.”

Giles looked up. “What sort?”

She shrugged. “Usual. Scales, claws, fangs. Three eyes, I think. Yellow. Glowed a bit. Well, its insides did. Once they were outside. It kept getting up again, I had to undo it most of the way down.”

“Not while we’re eating, Buffy,” pleaded Willow. “No slime while we’re eating.”

For once, Buffy actually listened, and apart from two more minor spats with Giles on the subject of feeding pizza to the puppy, the evening passed without disagreement – except for the point at which Oz moved to sit beside Giles, to show him something in the sleeve notes of a new CD. The puppy, which had been soaking up attention from Willow and Buffy, had climbed to its feet, shaking off Willow’s hand, and stalked across the room to push its way between the two men, before collapsing onto the floor again, this time with its chin on Giles’ thigh. It refused so much as to look at Oz, who smiled faintly.

“Apparently my pack status is even lower than I thought,” he murmured, without apparent offence. Giles moved to push the dog away, but Oz stopped him. “Don’t. It’s hard to be the wrong shape, Giles. Let him manage it however works for him.” He glanced at the girls, who were whispering to each other, and added, in even more of an undertone, “He just wants your attention; he can ask for it now the way he can’t usually. It doesn’t hurt me.” And almost inaudibly, “Might be good for you too.”

Giles thought that he must have misunderstood, but before he had a chance to ask, Buffy spoke to him and the moment was lost. As they were leaving, Willow stopped to hug Xander.

“We’ll come by tomorrow, yeah? No classes. We could... we could do something. Hang. If that’s O.K., Giles?” she added hastily and politely.

He nodded. “That would be good. Perhaps you and Xander could spend some time together. I, I have research to do. Buffy, would, would you...?”

She nodded. “No Saturday date for Buffy, so yeah, could swing by. Not first thing, though. I want to go to the mall, need... need some stuff. Xander won’t want to go shopping, specially not if he’s all four paws. We’ll come after that, ‘kay?” She patted the puppy, and checked her pockets for stakes, waved vaguely at Giles and bounced out, Willow following. Oz hesitated for a moment.

“Doing good work, Giles. That’s a contented dog.”

He found himself oddly gratified by the compliment, even if he rather suspected that Oz had been trying to tell him something else, something which he had missed.


	4. Wet Shirtless Giles

The early morning found them once again in the park. There was, Giles gathered, to be no eye contact from the gate to the point at which all the sanitary arrangements had been completed, but thereafter the puppy was more than willing to run and chase the ball, which Giles had carefully retained. His desire to have ten minutes in which to lie on the grass and do crunches and press-ups was viewed with some suspicion, and he was far from convinced that his exercise routine was improved either by the puppy licking his nose every time he curled off the ground – there had been a lot of garlic in Buffy’s pizza – or by it standing on his back when he rolled over. When he discovered that he had gained an audience of two elderly ladies with spaniels, all four of them laughing at him, he gave up; the spaniels seemed to want to help Xander to help Giles, and one of the ladies was commenting favourably on his physique in what she presumably thought was an undertone. He was quite prepared to accept the compliment, but he was reasonably certain that Xander didn’t approve.

They went home for breakfast; Xander began to watch the door almost immediately afterwards.

“You know, I doubt if they’ll show much before lunchtime. Buffy is not a morning person, and if she wants to go to the mall before she comes here, I can’t think that she’ll tear herself away before noon.”

The puppy thumped its tail on the floor and followed him about for ten minutes or so while he sorted his laundry and made his bed, but the next time he looked round, it was watching the door again. He said no more; he was doing his best for Xander (and he had Oz telling him that he was doing it right), but there was no denying that under normal circumstances, Giles wasn’t Xander's first choice of companion. It must be dull for Xander, being a dog, and unable to amuse himself, and it was hardly surprising that he wanted his friends. Giles left him alone, and went to his desk with his notepad and books. He had work to do; no doubt the puppy would prompt for some interaction when it was bored.

The translation was more difficult than he had anticipated, and when he read over the last version and found it good, he was conscious that he had been sitting still for longer than he had expected. He stretched, and felt his back click; then he glanced at the clock. Ten to one.

The puppy was still lying in the middle of the floor, eyes fixed on the door.

“I need a cup of tea and a sandwich, I think. Did you finish your breakfast? Do you need to go out?”

He talked, calmly and of nothing in particular, while he made and ate his lunch; Xander had turned enough to watch him, but he didn’t get up from his place within sight of the door, and oddly, didn’t ask for a share of Giles’ lunch. Giles was surprised to find himself a little resentful. It was nothing new for Buffy to have failed to meet some arrangement – she did it to him all the time – but it was unforgivable for her to have let Xander down, when his present difficulties were very largely her fault.

At a quarter to two, Giles found that he could bear no more of it. He went upstairs, changed his tweeds for denim, and picked out boots, lacing them firmly and lifting a small rucksack from the back of his wardrobe. Downstairs, he collected a bottle of water, two apples, a small tub of Xander's kibble and the ball, before crouching down in front of the puppy.

“Xander, my lad, I think we’ve been stood up.”

The puppy whined.

“Yes, well, it’s not exactly new to me, and you aren’t totally blameless on that score, but for once I don’t feel inclined to hang about waiting. We’ll go to the lake: I haven’t been there in months. If we take the car, we’ll have time for a decent walk and we’ll still be home by dark.”

The puppy sat up, beginning to look interested; Giles picked up the lead. “Just be careful what you stick your nose in: I’m still not up to speed with which plants are poisonous here, because in England we don’t have half the things you do. No running off and getting lost, no poking at scorpions because I don’t know what to do if you get stung. No chasing anything untoward. Understood?”

The thin tail moved slowly and, Giles thought, hopefully; he scratched behind one soft furred ear, and then got up to go to the door.

The puppy followed him.

They walked for miles. When the puppy stayed close, Giles talked to it, telling it about England, comparing the lake with the ones he knew at home, allowing himself to sound a little homesick in the way he almost never did in front of Buffy. When it scampered off into the undergrowth, he whistled to himself, snatches of the songs he had sung in his teens and twenties, madrigals he had learned in his prep school choir before his voice broke, the jazz standards which his mother had loved. Xander would burst from the bushes on one side, push a wet nose into his palm and disappear off the other way, coming back to trot alongside him for half a mile before taking off after a bird or some small animal rustling in the long grass. A couple of times Giles threw the ball for the puppy to chase, but it tended to get distracted; when they found a rocky beach at the lakeside, he skipped stones across the water, and Xander swam after them, pretending to be bewildered when they sank. He sat on a tree stump to eat an apple, with Xander crunching dog biscuit beside him, and he poured water into his palm for Xander to drink, long tongue tickling his fingers. Giles was a little anxious as they came back to the car; it was rather later than he had intended, and the sun was dipping, but they came home unharmed, if scratched and tired and muddy.

He fed the puppy, and cooked something for himself; allowed himself a small Scotch, looked without enthusiasm at the work on his desk, and felt a little kick of defiance.

“I’m not translating any more of that tonight. I’m too tired. Music: I want music.”

And a book which was not about creatures of the night, but which he could read simply for pleasure. He started stretched out on the couch, and somehow ended up on the floor, head on a pile of cushions, drink close by, novel in one hand, and the other curved around to get his fingers into Xander's fur. The puppy had edged ever closer, coming to rest against his side, chin on his shoulder, sighing with pleasure when Giles scratched along its spine. He must, he thought sleepily, make more of an effort to take time off. To go places like the park and the lake, not only because the exercise was good for him, but because they were attractive and because he ought to have proper breaks from research.

“Bloody boring old librarian, doing bloody boring old research,” he observed to the puppy, which thumped its tail on the floor without opening its eyes. “Maybe I should have persuaded Wesley to stay. He could have been boring enough for both of us and I could have had a day off occasionally. God, Xander, that’s the first time I’ve taken an afternoon off in six months, just to do something because I wanted to rather than because I needed to. Even the last time I went to the lake, I was looking for traces of sodding demons. I only go to the park to run, I never go just for pleasure. I can’t think how long it’s been since I went to see a film or a concert. You don’t, when you’re on your own. It’s not the same. I’ve been reading this book for a fortnight because I only ever read it in bed and I’m always too tired to finish the chapter. If I had the time, I could finish the whole thing in an evening.” He levered himself upright. “I think I’m going to bed before I drown in maudlin self-pity. You’d better go out first. That was a good afternoon.”

He carefully didn’t comment on the fact that there had been no note or message from Buffy when they had come in, no sign that she and Willow had ever intended to keep their date with Xander. He wasn’t sure if the puppy could understand that he had been ditched, presumably in favour of shoe shops and a last minute date; if it did, Giles wasn’t going to rub it in, but he hoped not. It had been a good afternoon, and the puppy had enjoyed itself; that would have to do.

He could feel his hamstrings when the puppy woke him next morning, a warning that he had indeed walked further and for longer than he was accustomed to, and that he needed to be careful. This time he did make the puppy wait while he carried out his stretching routine before they went to the park, and he was given the distinct impression that Xander wasn’t best pleased about it. Still, when they left Xander's favourite tree, he seemed to have been forgiven, and a brisk run along the gravel trail was well received. He managed his lunges and squats while the puppy nosed about in the woody undergrowth, and deliberately took ten minutes to do another set of stretches.

Then he called the puppy.

And again.

And again. He was beginning to worry, when he saw the bushes shake a hundred yards away, and the puppy’s head emerged between them.

“Come on, time to go home.”

The puppy crept out, crouching and hesitating.

“What’s wrong? It’s time to go.”

It stopped, and sank to the grass, nose flat on the ground, ears pinned down.

“Come on.”

The puppy whined; Giles unfastened the lead which he had been carrying looped around his neck and chest and strode forward.

“Come on, that’s... Angels and ministers of grace defend us!”

The puppy wailed and rolled on its back, throat and belly exposed, plainly expecting him to be angry. He was too shocked to be anything of the sort.

“Dear heaven, what in the name of God is that?”

The puppy rolled over again and crept towards him on its belly, head low. He stepped back inadvertently, one hand going up to protect his nose and mouth, eyes watering.

“Alexander LaVelle Harris, what have you done?”

It wasn’t one of his better questions. It was obvious to the meanest intelligence what the puppy had done: it had found something disgusting, and rolled in it. He gave it his strongest patented glare, with some success, because it cried again.

“Stay there. Don’t move so much as a muscle.”

He stepped past it, coughing, and peered into the bushes. He could see a rough trail where the puppy had obviously been and cautiously, he picked his way along it. Then he gagged and beat a hasty retreat.

“Remind me to tell Buffy that she has to hide dead demons further off the beaten track. Which doesn’t explain what on earth possessed you to... God. Come here. Put your lead on. Xander, you are... good lord, I’ve never smelt anything like it and I trust I never shall again. I’m going to have to give you a bath, and believe me, that is something that doesn’t appear on my ‘Things To Do Before I Die’ list. The extent to which you owe me...”

They met the elderly ladies with the spaniels, all four of whom coughed and backed away; Giles, who wouldn’t normally start conversations with strangers, advised them, from a safe distance, to take the other path. “I, I think it’s a dead animal of some description, but it’s a long way into putrefaction. I, I, at home I would telephone the local council or the Parks Commission, but, but I don’t know who to call here.”

“The Mayor’s office?” enquired one of the ladies, through her handkerchief.

“Yes, possibly,” agreed Giles; “and then I’ll have to do something about Jasper.”

The puppy had the grace to look ashamed.

“He’s not mine,” added Giles unkindly; “I’m just looking after him for a few days. I’m not supposed to have a dog in my apartment and if the landlord gets wind of this – literally – I’ll be homeless.”

“Dish soap and peroxide,” said the other lady firmly.

“I, I beg your pardon?”

“Dish soap. Rather than dog shampoo. And ordinary peroxide, like you use to bleach your kitchen surfaces?”

He nodded. Actually, he kept peroxide because it was one of the few things that would remove a bloodstain from clothing, but he did keep it.

“Mix baking soda, a big handful, and a full bottle of peroxide until it foams and wipe the dog down with it, and then bath him with dish soap.”

“Washing up liquid? Really?”

The first lady nodded in agreement. “I put the dish soap in with the soda and peroxide and half a bucket of water, and wash the dog with the mix. You may need to let it sit on his coat for ten minutes. Rinse it well off before you dry him.” She glanced down at her spaniel. “We met a skunk last year, but I think this is worse.”

“Thank you,” said Giles, with deep gratitude. “I, I haven’t met a skunk yet, I’m English and we don’t have them. I, I’ll try that.” He considered, and coughed again. “I’ll try anything.”

“You’ll need to throw the towel away afterwards,” she advised. “If the smell doesn’t spoil it, the peroxide will.”

He nodded, and said goodbye, to their obvious relief; the trip home was made dreadful by the puppy’s instinctive desire to appease him by sticking close to his ankles, and his equally instinctive desire to have it at a distance of not less than ten feet. In the courtyard, discretion overtook his notion of treating Xander as normally as possible. He wasn’t going to have Xander in the flat in that condition for longer than he must; he wasn’t going to take any risks of Xander running away or approaching his neighbours. He hooked the end of the lead under one leg of the cast iron table, and glared at the puppy.

“You’ll just have to wait while I find out if I have got peroxide. You’re not coming inside like that.”

Fortunately, planning came naturally to him: peroxide mixture, washing up liquid, old towels, plastic container to use as scoop, plastic gloves, a couple of black bags for the dead towels. He had everything ready to hand in the bathroom when he went back outside.

“Believe me, I’m going to enjoy this as little as you are.” He had the puppy in the air before it knew what was coming; it was too big to lift by the scruff of the neck, he had to take it round the chest and under the haunches, and it was heavier than it looked, but Giles was both big and strong and the automatic struggle was in vain.

“Keep still,” he snapped, nonetheless; the puppy kicked once, and squealed as Giles tightened his grip.

“What?” He wasn’t gripping fur; that shouldn’t have hurt but when he shifted his hand the puppy yelped again. He couldn’t let go; he made it to the bathroom, and dumped Xander in three inches of warm water before leaning over the hand basin and retching. Even thirty seconds with his face close to that smell was all but unendurable. He turned, and glowered; the puppy cowered.

“All right, you needn’t look as if I were going to beat you, although it would serve you right if I did. I’ll just...” He looked down at the marker-pen yellow smear of... of insides of dead demon on his shirt. He sighed. Slaying, and by extension, Watching, was hard on clothes; he had long since started buying tee shirts in packs of five from discount stores. He caught the neck of the shirt and pulled; the shoulder seam ripped, and he tore the shirt top to bottom. The demon slime would never wash out anyway, and he felt no desire to take the source of the smell past his face and over his head. He dropped it into the bath beside the puppy. It would do as a washcloth.

If Xander had looked pathetic before, he looked utterly wretched once he was wet. His ears could go no lower, his head hung, his tail was clipped tightly between his legs. Even Giles couldn’t continue to be exasperated.

“Come on, it’s not that bad. Keep still and you won’t get it in your eyes.” He removed the collar – that would have to be replaced, it was slimy and odorous – and lathered up the fine fur, all the way from the delicate ears to the tip of the miserable tail. When he started down one trembling leg, the puppy yelped again, and this time Giles drew back.

“That hurts? Why does that hurt?” He lifted the paw and checked it, manipulated the leg gently, worked one hand under the shoulder and – got another yelp. “Shoulder hurts? And ribs? Why’s that?” The other side wasn’t, apparently, painful – at least not on a foreleg. The puppy flinched when Giles pushed his fingers into its hindquarter. He sat back on his heels and frowned.

“What the hell’s that, Xander? Its not muscular, you’re not lame, but it obviously hurts. It didn’t hurt when I stroked you the other night – or at least you didn’t complain, so is this something you’ve done since? Or is it just that now I’m being rougher?” He tested, more gently, up the puppy’s back. There were a couple of tender places which made Xander jump, but nothing as bad as the two he had already found.  “Well, you can’t tell me, I suppose, but I’d like to know. All right, I’ll be careful.” And he was careful. He was thoroughly exasperated at the whole escapade, and inclined to wonder if Xander couldn’t have restrained his puppy instincts rather better, but he had no desire to hurt the boy. He worked the peroxide mixture into the puppy’s coat and then drew back.

“Right. Give that ten minutes or so. Tell me if it burns or stings or, or anything.” He peeled off the plastic gloves and looked down at himself, lifting each forearm in turn to his nose. “I don’t think you got any on me, only on my shirt. I’d want a shower anyway so I suppose I can wait.” He looked down at the shivering body – that was canine misery, it wasn’t cold, and he’d been more generous with the warm water than he might have been. He retrieved his ruined shirt and found a cleanish patch with which to wipe the puppy’s face; when he put his hand under its jaw, he could feel the tiny whimpers which he couldn’t hear. “All right, stop that. Come on, it’s not irrecoverable. There’s nobody dead. It’s just your normal demon-magnetism, although I think this form is even worse than your usual.” He sat back on his heels. “Do we add ‘getting bathed by the Watcher’ to the list of things we never talk about?”

He got a dirty look in exchange, and laughed, and scratched again under the puppy’s chin. “Little misery.” His fingers worked slowly from one ear to the other; Xander's neck stretched and his head tipped to one side in an attempt to get the caress precisely where he wanted it, and the end of his tail moved tentatively. Wet, soapy peace reigned for a few minutes, and then Giles stood up and reached for the shower.

“Let’s try for clean, then.”

It took a long time before he was certain that there was neither soap nor peroxide remaining; then he insisted – in the face of Xander's marked lack of enthusiasm – in a complete second wash just with soap, and another long rinse. Finally, he leaned over and sniffed.

“I think you’re fit for a decent household again. We’ll just get you dry – no!” For Xander had started to shake, and all Giles could do was grab him and clutch the wet body to his own. “No!” he admonished again into the ear next to his mouth. “Don’t shake! For heaven’s sake, I’m going to have to clean the bath as it is; I don’t want to have to wash the walls! Keep still!” He let go slowly; Xander quivered, but he didn’t shake, and Giles reached for the towel on the floor and draped it over him, blotting the water which still ran off him in rivulets. “Good. O.K. Now we’ll go outside, and then you can shake. I’m going to carry you again. I’ll try not to hurt you.”

He peeled off the sodden towel and used a second one to envelop the puppy. “Ready?” Now he knew where the sore places were, and he was careful to avoid them; it made it more difficult to catch his balance with an armful of wet, heavy dog, and Xander slipped for a moment before Giles bent his knees, braced the puppy on his thigh, and heaved himself to his feet. The trip to the door was a controlled stagger and he barely made it to the courtyard before his grip failed and he only just avoided dropping his burden.

Then he dragged the towel away and turned his back just in time to avoid the flurry of water being thrown off by a shaking dog.

“Giles?”

He looked up. Buffy and Willow both had their mouths open in surprise, although Willow was looking at the puppy, which was now racing around the courtyard shaking and yipping, and Buffy was looking at Giles himself. She seemed startled, and unless he was very much mistaken, she was blushing. He wondered for a second if she was embarrassed at having let him down the day before, but it seemed unlikely. She had never expressed any shame on that sort of subject before. It couldn’t be that he was shirtless. Slaying injuries were common enough that she had taped his ribs on more than one occasion. His chest was not new territory.

The puppy bounced at him, paws in the air, and he handed it off briskly; it shook again and he winced away. Well, ‘never talk about it’ wasn’t an option here any more. “Buffy, please don’t leave dead demons on the dog-walkers’ trails. Idiot teenage dogs roll in the nasty bits and have to be bathed by middle-aged Watchers with better things to do.” The puppy bounded up again, back arched, nose down on paws, hindquarters lifted and tail thrashing to and fro, inviting him to play. He caught at the thick fur around its neck and wrestled for a moment. “Idiot teenage dogs,” he admonished affectionately. He picked up the towel and held it out to Buffy. “You can take a share of the work now.” From the corner of his eye he saw Willow turn towards him; she gave an odd little jump and her eyes went wide. Why? She’d seen his chest before too. “Get him dry. I need to clean the bathroom, and then I need a shower.”

“And clothes, Giles!” squeaked Willow.

He stared at her. They were all looking at him now; the puppy was alternating between the girls and Giles himself, as if between them they were confusing it. Then it sat, cocked its head and held up a paw again.

“I was rather intending to put clothes on, yes. But if you think I was going to wear tweed to wash the dog...”

She looked away nervously; Buffy wouldn’t catch his eye either. He retreated with as much dignity as he could manage. Teenage girls were even more bewildering than teenage boys; at least with the boys he had some recollection of why they said and did what they did.

The bathroom still had a lingering odour of dead demon; he turned on the fan, scraped the shreds of his shirt and the first towel into a plastic bag with the spurned collar, and knotted the top of it, ready to be thrown away. Then he sprayed the bath with pine cleaner and turned to retrieve a cloth from his stash under the basin.

He caught sight of himself in the mirror. He was wet, wet all over; his attempt to stop Xander shaking while in the bath had resulted merely in the transfer of a lot of water to Giles himself. His chest hair glistened with it, and the muscles of his arms and shoulders shone. But it had obviously been the brace and heave with which he had lifted the puppy from his thigh to his chest that had done the damage: his running shorts were soaked through. Completely. They clung – in the places in which Buffy and Willow presumably would have preferred that they didn’t. Fortunately the fabric had not turned transparent with the water – but he wasn’t at all certain that the hints and suggestions made by wet cotton over... well, over Giles... weren’t worse.

He shut his eyes in dismay. He had known for years that Buffy preferred not to think of him as a man. He was her Watcher, and her discomfort at his interactions with Jenny, with Olivia, with her mother, was palpable. What she might have thought had she realised that some of his sexual partners were men, he couldn’t imagine. Giles should not, in Buffy’s eyes, be a sexual being at all, ever. He rather thought that she imagined him as being a blank from waist to knees, plastic doll style.

Wet shorts didn’t tie in with that view.

And as for Willow... He had known that Willow – dear Willow – had a crush on him when she was at school. Of course he had known. He had been careful in his dealings with her; he had no wish to encourage her, but neither had he wanted to embarrass her, and he remembered teenage crushes. They passed soon enough. A few times, though, Willow had blushed, or hesitated, or giggled, at remarks which had passed the others by. Willow, he thought, had been aware of him as a sexual being.

She had just never seen the evidence so clearly before.

Xander... he had no idea whether or not Xander viewed him as a man. He thought not. Xander merely thought of him as Giles: no detail.

Well, there was nothing he could do about it, except to pretend to be unaware. Clean the bath, Giles; fetch some tweed. Shower and dress.

They stayed until lunchtime, shared his midday sandwiches, left empty soda cans on his table, were persuaded to stay while Giles went out to replace the collar and then to walk with the puppy for half an hour, and went again, promising more visits later.

They said nothing about their failure to show the previous day, and Giles didn’t ask. Xander could take that up with them in his own time if he wanted; Giles was well accustomed to being stood up.

He firmly put aside the notion that if Xander didn’t revert to his own shape, all their relationships would have to change.

In the middle of the afternoon, the puppy became anxious, pacing around, whimpering occasionally, and refusing to settle. He got up twice to let it out, but the second time it simply stood on the doorstep, sniffing the air.

“What’s the matter?” Like there was any point in asking. Xander couldn’t tell him. “Are you going out or not?”

Not, apparently.

“Well, lie down. You’ve had a walk, you can possess yourself in patience for an hour. I’m busy. I, I’ll walk you to the end of the road later.”

The puppy whined, and whined again, a nervous, thin sound.

“What...”

He caught it: the faint aroma of pineapple. It took him a moment to think what he had done with the bag of Xander's clothes, and then he locked the door. Whatever happened, it would be better without interruption. He armed himself. He had never seen Aspall field transformations, and had no idea what to expect. He didn’t think that Xander would become dangerous, but he had been wrong before.

The puppy cried, and scrabbled across the floor to him, shoving its muzzle between his knees and overbalancing him. He sat down on the couch, and then slid to the floor, allowing the trembling body to climb half into his lap.

“All right, now, hush. It’s all right.” His fingers went automatically to the hollows behind the puppy’s ears, and he stroked gently and reassuringly. He had seen Oz transform, both ways, and it was a terrifying sight; Xander had seen it too, and Xander had undergone his own transformation. Even if it didn’t hurt, it must... it must be frightening. He stroked on. The puppy twisted suddenly, yelped, rolled. Came back to him, pushing against his chest. He wrapped an arm around it, and worked his hand slowly down a flank.

The puppy wailed, and the top note broke as the fur under his palm shortened and the body lengthened. He had Xander's head on his thigh, Xander's ribs beneath his hand, Xander's waist dipping away from his fingers. He should stop, he should let go, but Xander's face was buried against Giles' stomach, and he was trembling. Giles simply continued the long, slow stroke of palm to torso, until Xander abruptly drew his knees up in what looked to be a return of modesty.

Giles let his hand still, not sure what to say – and then his glance fell on the skin he had been touching.

“I – did I do that? When I lifted you? God, Xander, I’m so sorry.”

Xander’s ribs were speckled with bruises, green and yellow – that couldn’t be Giles’ fault, surely? They were too old. When he moved, the opposite hip and buttock bore the same pattern, and his back was chequered with square-ish marks.

“No.” Xander's voice was rough and he sounded unsure, like a much younger boy not certain what pitch to expect when he spoke. “Demon, last week. I got in the way.”

Giles blinked, bewildered. He couldn’t think of any demon they had met lately that could have made marks like that, but... “Your clothes are here,” he said carefully, and Xander nodded, without meeting his eye, and rolled over. It seemed only fair to rise, to step away without ever quite looking, to stay facing the other way until Xander was dressed and decent again.

“Are you hungry?”

“No. Thank you. I... I think I had better go home, ya know?”

He nodded, wordless, and they looked at each other for a moment before Xander turned away towards the door.

“Xander?”

The boy stopped, without turning. Giles swallowed.

“You... I... the collar.”

He turned then, lips parted, but without anything to say; the collar was unfastened clumsily, and Xander turned it over once in his hands, as if looking for inspiration, before setting it down on the desk. His eyes lifted to meet Giles’ again, but neither of them had words, it seemed.

He went.

Well. It was well. Giles told himself so. They had got away with it. It had been extremely... it must have been very unpleasant for Xander, and it had been very inconvenient for Giles, but they had got through it. They would both be much more comfortable now that it was over. It would probably be embarrassing the first time they met, but they would get over it. He lifted the water bowl from the kitchen floor and threw out the remaining half can of dog food. The collar and lead went back upstairs to the box in his wardrobe. He hoped that Xander would never ask about them. In exchange, he would never mention that tree, or black plastic bags, or having spanked Xander for nosing in the bin. Or having caught the puppy licking... No. It would be enough that Xander knew he knew.

A handful of towels, one of them wet, were put into the washing machine, with an old rugby shirt, and an empty cardboard box was flattened and put away. He could get on with his work.

He looked up several times over the course of the afternoon and evening, thinking that he had heard... something. When he went to the kitchen to make himself a meal, he found that he cooked and set aside an extra potato.  He made himself a cup of tea, and sat down with the daily paper, and his hand dropped over the arm of the chair before he remembered that there was nothing on the floor to be touched. At bedtime, he rose from the desk, stretched, and turned towards the door, rather than to the stairs.

The flat was distressingly silent; he turned on the radio as he undressed, and almost immediately turned it off again. He read four pages of his book, and abandoned it as dull.

He turned off the light, congratulated himself firmly on having his flat to himself again, and deliberately made his mind go blank enough for sleep.

He woke dismayingly early, turned over twice telling himself to go back to sleep, and got up in the end, cursing disturbed sleep patterns. He dithered for a moment, undecided between making coffee and putting on some clothes and going out, and found that while he marshalled the arguments, he had dragged on a shirt and some sweatpants and was lacing his shoes.

Xander was sitting on the cast iron table in the courtyard. Giles stopped dead; when Xander spoke, Giles could hear, as he had never allowed himself to hear before, the insecurity, the longing behind the flippant tone.

“So, G-Man, how d’ya feel about a Frisbee, rather than a ball, in the park?”

Giles looked at the plastic thing in Xander's hand. Then he smiled.

“Promise you won’t roll in anything dead?”


End file.
